“As the story goes, Alexander the Great once captured a pirate and questioned him, asking, ‘How dare you molest the sea?’ The pirate answered, ‘How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the whole world and are called an emperor’” (pg 5).

The “bad girl goes good” archetyp:

“a wild woman is tamed and surrenders to her destined gender role. This type of story is perennially popular with male historians as a way of diminishing the power of a warrior woman’s legend. It is meant to teach the reader that although a woman can have her fun and possibly even do something great, in the end, she will go home and raise babies like she is supposed to” (pg 12).

Grade: C

For a historian nut, this is probably more interesting. As is, outside of the above quotes, it was meh. I actually found she spoke more about the history of male pirates than anything, but I suppose too, that is to her point - men just don’t care enough to write about female pirates. Even great ones.

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